


Bedtime Stories for Runaway Children

by andywarholwasahoarder



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Abuse, Canon Compliant, Dyslexia, M/M, One Shot, Technically Wylan/OC but it's a plot device and barely there, obligatory 2000 word fic that doesn't actually have a plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2019-11-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21576790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andywarholwasahoarder/pseuds/andywarholwasahoarder
Summary: "Ever been beaten until you can't walk?""No."Liar.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 60





	Bedtime Stories for Runaway Children

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick one-shot written as an extension of a tumblr [post](https://sonicisgodorhecouldkillgod.tumblr.com/post/190301956277/hellohellogoodnight-i-just-had-a-thought-my) I made. Formerly titled "The Other Lie" and/or "A Beautiful Glass Ceiling" because I'm indecisive like that.

Wylan kicked at his chair leg. (The Van Eck library had a beautiful domed glass ceiling and bookshelves tall and clustered as a city. It felt like something would fall over.) He straightened when he heard the door open and tried to look grown-up, which was difficult because his feet didn’t quite reach the ground.

A thin, brown-haired woman who wore glasses with thin frames introduced herself as Ms. Jules. She carried a leather briefcase. Ms. Jules opened the case. Inside there were several books and papers, a pen and ink set, and a bag of chocolates. Ms. Jules set out a blank sheet of paper and a pen.

Without looking up, she said, “What’s your name?”

“Wylan.” She made a note.

“And how old are you, Wylan?”

“Nine.”

She withdrew a sheaf of paper bound by a clip. “We’re going to start by taking a quick sample.” She leafed through the papers and selected one.

Wylan leaned forward, opened his mouth, closed it. Every once in a while the letters would settle into some resemblance of sentences, and Wylan would still, as if not to disturb them. But then he blinked, and all he saw was the black tangle.

“Would it help if I read it to you?”

He nodded. Wylan concentrated on the hum of her voice.

“Now your turn.”

Wylan hesitated, then he began, “Once upon a time…”

As he read Ms. Jules took a note here and there, circling numbers on a chart.

“Good job.” She smiled. Wylan smiled. He wondered if she might give him one of the chocolates. “Now, let’s try a different passage.”

Again Wylan leaned forward, but the longer he stared the more muddled the words became. After a minute they blurred too, and Wylan realized he was crying.

This time Ms. Jules didn’t offer to read aloud. Instead she waited. When he was finished, she asked him to describe what it was like to read. She listened, then she snapped her case shut and stood.

She took him by the shoulder and guided him to the sitting room. Wylan curled on the couch while Ms. Jules and his father sat across from each other.

They spoke for several minutes, then Jan Van Eck pressed a thick wad of _kruge_ in Ms. Jules’s hand.

“You have a nice day, Juliette Winters. I appreciate your help and your discretion.”

His father waited until she was gone before turning to him. He spoke slowly, clearly. “Do you know what Ms. Winters said, Wylan?”

“No.” His voice pitched up at the end, like he was asking a question. He _was_ asking a question, _did I do something wrong?_

“Look at me when I am speaking to you.”

Wylan forced his head up.

“Today I learned my son is not only an incompetent, but a cheater.”

“I didn’t– I didn’t cheat.”

“Oh, are you going to stutter now too? Do I need to hire someone to help you learn how to speak?”

_Crack._ He was on the floor. For a second his mind was shocked perfectly blank, and then his jaw began to throb.

“Stand up.” _Look at me when I am speaking to you._ “I’ll speak to you later.”

Wylan didn’t need to be told twice.

The walls of his room were light blue, the furniture dark oak. Corners fitted together in seamless geometry. A large map of Ketterdam hung on one wall and three paintings were arranged in a triangle on the other. Everything that had been planned since he was born. _Ghezen, what a waste._

He lay on his bed, listening to his pulse, amazed at how you could feel so alive and so dead at the same time.

Later, there was a knock on his door. His father stood in the doorway, a cup of tea in hand. He sat down on Wylan’s bed. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. It’s… I love you, okay, Wy? I want what’s best for you.”

Wylan had sat with his knees to his chest, had looked at his father and wanted very badly to believe him. So for a long time, he did.

Wylan was an exception. His father was willing to _make exceptions_ for him. Jan Van Eck was not a superstitious man, and yet there were a few months where he believed Wylan was possessed. He did not believe in investing further resources in a lost cause and yet there were always more tutors, more trials, more beatings.

He learned when to run, when to stand. _(Look at me when I am speaking to you.)_ To watch for the signs–he was so successful at this, he began to see ones even when they weren’t any. When he returned to his room, however, there was still the same small, scared boy who couldn’t fall asleep. Wylan told the boy stories.

Most of the time it was about a city, big and bright and far away. An apartment of his own, cramped but comfortable. Every once in a while it was his father, lying at the bottom of the stairs in a pool of blood. His head cracked open with blunt force or a bullet. Wylan turned these nights over like the mildly interesting glass figurines on his shelf, noting them for a moment and then setting them down. He knew he was supposed to feel scared, or angry, or disgusted at himself, but when he reached for a reaction there was almost something there, he could feel the edge of it, but it slipped away as soon as he touched it and it left nothing.

“And how old are you, Wylan?”

“Ten.”

Mr. Meulen prescribed an herbal tonic that made him too nauseous to eat. “It’s cleansing,” he said.

“And how old are you, Wylan?”

“Eleven.”

Mr. Wells gave him a pair of blue-tinted spectacles. This, Wylan would later decide, was the cruelest thing of all, for it had given him hope. The letters had become a bit clearer, and he caught the beginnings of a paragraph, made out a few words. The effect only lasted a few weeks.

“And how old are you, Wylan?”

“Twelve.”

Mrs. Etta thought he had demons in his blood and they needed to be removed, so she cut open his arm and collected the blood in a jar. 

“And how old are you, Wylan?”

“Thirteen.”

Thomas Moskal smiled and nodded.

Wylan tucked into his food as if it might disguise him. Roast pheasant, mushroom soup, figs wrapped in slices of ham, cream cakes, souffles. His father had spared no expense for this dinner, given that it was for not one, but three heads of Ravkan companies he hoped to partner with.

“Your father tells me you play the flute. Sketch. Knack for chemistry, too. Not bad at numbers and with an excellent memory to boot.”

“Thank you.”

_It’s not real_ , Wylan reminded himself. _It’s what he tells people, he doesn’t mean it._ Try as he might, he couldn’t stop the part of him that wanted very badly to believe it was true. And that was what destroyed you in the end: the longing for something you could never have.*

“How are your Kerch studies?” Thomas gestured to his son. “Petro tells me you’re having some trouble."

Wylan froze mid-bite. He ordered his hand to keep moving, his mouth to chew and swallow. 

A few hours earlier, Petro had cornered him in the pantry. The older boy had neatly combed brown hair and sharp, narrow features that somehow came together on his face.

“Hello,” he’d said. “Why are you in the pantry?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Petro laughed. “I was hungry.” He wedged himself next to Wylan.

“I’m Petro Moskal.”

“Wylan Van Eck.”

“The merch’s son?”

“Again, I could ask you the same thing.”

“Guilty.”

They were silent. Wylan’s shoulders hurt, and he was painfully aware of every movement. He was about to say something about the weather, just for the sake of saying _something_ , when Petro spoke instead.

“I’m going to tell you a secret, Wylan Van Eck.” Petro’s faint Ravkan accent, his cold hands brushing against Wylan’s neck, the angles of his face (Wylan wanted to sketch him)... it was hard to think. 

“Yeah?”

“I like boys.” Wylan didn’t know what was happening. His heart was racing and his senses were on fire and his palms were sweaty. It was what he felt like when his father was angry, except instead of everything inside him wanting to run he thought, _What happens if I move closer?*_ “Your turn,” Petro said.

Wylan’s mother used to say that ghosts would steal the air from your lungs if there was a secret they didn’t want you to tell. “I can’t read,” he said.

The world did not, as he expected, implode. 

“Can I kiss you?”

_Yes. No. I don’t know._

Petro kissed him anyway.

“It’s natural for young boys to not be too keen on reading, but trust me, you’ll thank me later,” Thomas continued.

“Of course,” Van Eck agreed. He ruffled Wylan’s hair. “I’ve been telling him, but you know how they are at this age. You were saying something about the _jurda_ shipments?”

“Yes, we’re trying to automate the process…”

Wylan checked his father was giving his full attention to the _jurda_ shipments before glancing at Petro, who was eating some sort of steak dish. Petro looked up and mouthed, _I’m sorry._

Wylan put his head down and ate his dinner.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

_Excellent question, Father._

Wylan was hoping that his father’s mood might have improved after securing a deal with two out of the three companies. It had not.

He seized Wylan by the wrist, the bones grinding against each other as he dragged him into the library. 

Wylan was surprised to find himself relieved. The library had two sets of double doors and a side door near the back. It was, oddly, the safest room in the house.

“You told a stranger?” He shook Wylan. “A Ravkan? A homosexual and a whore?” At _whore_ the first blow came. They didn’t hurt, and then they did, and then they didn’t. At his stomach and ribs, mostly, and at one point there was a kick to his leg and a _snap_.

He lay crumpled on the carpet and he thought nonsensically that the ceiling was beautiful. He wondered if he would die in that library, and he thought _how appropriate_.

“Ever been beaten until you can’t walk?”

“No.”

Liar. 

**Author's Note:**

> *Quote from the books


End file.
